d0om on 5/5/2011 at 11:26

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So the UK has a referendum today to decide if we want to ditch the not-fit-for-purpose current voting system and use the alternative vote instead. Unfortunately the No campaign have been essentially lying and using misdirection to get people to vote against it.

I think the No vote is going to win from the polls, which is sad really. I'm not sure many people actually understand the difference given how much FUD the No campaign are spreading.

Current system: Everyone votes for a first preference, whoever gets the most wins. This works fine when you only have 2 parties, when but you have 4-5 people standing in most areas, it causes problems. If two candidates have similar views, they can split their vote and lose while if one of them wasn't standing the other would have won.

Alternative Vote: You rank the candidates in order of preference, and a many-rounds elimination takes place with the last placed candidate eliminated in each round, with everyone's votes counting to their highest preference still in the running. This carries on until someone gets 50% or more of the votes.

(http://www.anthonysmith.me.uk/2011/01/17/how-complicated-is-the-alternative-vote/) is a good flowchart explaining the differences.

The No campaign is saying nonsense like "voters for minority parties count twice under AV", while *everyone's* vote counts in every round. Bah.

Matthew on 5/5/2011 at 12:13

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Don't think Labour were in any way serious about sealing the deal, though?

I'm voting for it on the basis that anything that a Conservative PM asks you to vote against is probably a good thing in the long run. Amusingly, I will be doing so at the same time as voting in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections ... using single transferable vote. Oops!

R Soul on 5/5/2011 at 12:53

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It's silly to vote for something based on who agrees or disagrees. For example, UKIP is in favour of AV. So is Peter Mandleson. So both sides of the debate have some pretty disagreeable supporters.

Chimpy Chompy on 5/5/2011 at 13:20

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I drifted from nahhh to okay-then. It appears more representative of the desires of the electorate. And the arguments from the No camp mostly came down to "it's more complicated" (patronising) or "the guy that comes in second can win the race". (not a great analogy)

demagogue on 5/5/2011 at 13:46

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I remember a professor walking us through different voting systems, including these two, and showing how the math could lead to unexpected outcomes in every case, in different ways (like a winner that's nobody's 1st choice, or 1st only for a relatively small group, or way down the scale but less disagreed on). Robert Dahl does this too in one of his books on Democracy, Preface on Democratic Theory or Democracy and its Critics or On Democracy, one of those.

Their point was that ranking a "general" preference perfectly is an impossible task because whatever system you pick has to bring in all sorts of assumptions, and just as a matter of numbers there's no such thing as a ideal general preference to find.

I have to remember the reasons why the one you labeled "Current System" has advantages. I know you want each vote to be counted equally, which rank & re-vote systems undermine. I can't explain it all as well as Dahl did.